My Foray into My Midwestern Roots

Update on Eva

In my post for the 51st Carnival of Genealogy -Independent From Birth, I wrote about my grandfather’s foster sister, Eva. Toward the end of my post I wrote, ” wish I could have met this woman – my grandfather’s younger sister – as she lived for many years after his death. Whenever the family discussed his relatives, we all knew he had a younger sister but I truly think that they had fallen out of touch many years earlier. It isn’t known who stopped communicating. Possibly it was a bit of both. Knowing my grandfather he would have talked and talked until he was blue in the face about “straightening up” and flying right to her. As independent as she seems, Eva probably decided to do what she’d always done – dance to her own music and “if all you’re going to do is lecture me, I’m not listening anymore.” Theories that are probably closer to the mark than not. It seems rather sad to me that no one contacted her – or knew where to reach her – when my grandfather passed away. We never sought to visit her when we were in Indiana. I hope that in her later years, she finally found what she was searching for. Life is really rather short in the grand scheme of things and family ties – no matter how strained or tenuous – should never be broken.”

During my trip back to my mom’s house, I asked her why no one ever contacted Eva when my grandfather died. Her response was, “She had died about 30 years before.” When I told her that wasn’t true, she was surprised. I told her what I knew about Eva’s later life and how she and her son had a falling out about the time Eva realized she was going to be an older, single mother. My mom then figured that her son said that she’d died because he wasn’t on good terms with her anymore.

So that solves the mystery on why we never contacted her or saw her. I would guess that Eva really did feel as if she was all alone in the world.

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[…] Editor’s note: right after I wrote the paragraph above, I did more research and realized that there is so much more to this story! So I will finish this by pointing to some earlier blog posts I had written: Independent from Birth and Update on Eva. […]